The purpose of this data collection was to identify the
causes of marital instability throughout the life course. A national
sample of married individuals 55 years of age or younger was
interviewed by telephone in 1980 and reinterviewed in 1983 and 1988.
Spouses were not interviewed. In the first wave of data the
investigators focused on female labor force participation, while the
next two waves were guided by a life course perspective. An attempt was
made to link changes in items such as econom... (more info)

The purpose of this data collection was to identify the
causes of marital instability throughout the life course. A national
sample of married individuals 55 years of age or younger was
interviewed by telephone in 1980 and reinterviewed in 1983 and 1988.
Spouses were not interviewed. In the first wave of data the
investigators focused on female labor force participation, while the
next two waves were guided by a life course perspective. An attempt was
made to link changes in items such as economic resources, wife's
employment, presence of children, marital satisfaction, life goals, and
health, to divorce, permanent separation, and other actions intended to
dissolve a marriage. Background variables on respondents include age,
sex, educational attainment, marital status and history, number of
children, religious affiliation, and income level. Information also is
supplied on relationship with in-laws, size of home, parents'
employment, use of free time, club membership, child care arrangements,
and responsibility for chores.

In
processing this collection, missing data codes defined by the principal
investigators have been left unchanged at their request, and SAS and
SPSS system missing data were assigned numeric codes for each variable.
Also, an unmarried case in Wave I was deleted at the principal
investigator's request.

Methodology

Sample:
National probability sample. The sample was selected using
a random-digit dialing cluster technique. Data were weighted to adjust
for underrepresentation in metropolitan areas.

Data Source:

telephone interviews

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1992-05-12

Version History:

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.